My wife took my son today to a birthday party, so my daughter and I got up with the sun rise and headed to ocean.
I had my alarm set for 5:30 am, but I got woken up by her at 5am, I thought that was pretty cool she was all ready to go. A good sign of things to come….
We put the Adventure Island in at the Highlands of New Jersey; there is a Hobie Yacht/ Racing club there and they are pretty cool. If you are a member they got free cold beers when you come in from a long day on the water
I decided to make it really simple today with my daughter, she is only 3. 1 rod and a handful of lures.
I rigged one rod (St Croix of course), Shimano 4500, baitrunner my favorite with a TNW tipped with a little piece of a Hogy (
http://hogylures.net/index.htm#softbaits) that the Bluefish tore up last time out. If you don’t know what a Bluefish is, they are a very aggressive with teeth that will take your finger right off. If blues were in the 50lb range they would have to close the beaches. The fight is just incredible for a 10-20lb fish they will give your arm a hurting. Especially on a flyrod, which I never tried
We sailed across to Sandy Hook, when we got into the middle of the bay (Raritan Bay), we got our first hit within the first 20min. It was really cool, the bluefish would hit the tube-n-worm (TNW) the bait runner reel, would zeeeng for a little and then stop. By the time I looked back the fish were breaking the surface of the water and coming out. I would pull in the sail, put my feet into the water near the outriggers and fight the fish to one side. The process of fishing and sailing the AI is getting smoother each and every time I go out
I had a pretty big reel and rod, certainly plenty big for a 10lb blue, these blues were bombers, they fought with vengeance, every time I got them close they would peel off some more line.
So the first fish scared my daughter and she started crying, by the second fish she asked if we were going to eat him. By the 3rd and 4th she wanted to keep one for everyone in the family. We caught at least 12 fish and kept 3 nice ones.
It was really fun out there every 5-10 minutes we would be hooked up, the only way not to catch fish was to leave the rod out of the water. These blues were in 10 - 12lb range or bigger. I know when I put them behind my seat they were hanging over each side.
Really a great day, my daughter is hooked, she loved it.
It got really rough coming home, we were sailing back into the winds that picked up around 20-30 (small craft warnings) and the seas were around 3-6, we were plowing thru and over the waves, really fun, The Hobie Adventure Island is a seaworthy boat that really can take you places and back. The AI ama’s and aka’s were bouncing all over the place, I thought for sure something was going to break, but nothing did.
I had a problem with the cam cleats that held the main sheet and furling system, they failed on me while I was out there. They both just stopped camming or stopping the rope. I have to take a closer look today. One of my upgrades to the boat I am working on is to find a different way to run the lines for the main sheet and furling system, It’s hard for me to keep the lines apart and to grab.
At one point we went thru a wave that broke on the sail to give you an idea of how high the wave was and came right down the boat and hit me in my vest.
I put my daughter in my dry top with here little head out the top, it was like her own little tent. What was really surprising was that in the worse of it, I looked down and she was asleep on my chest.
What a day, we finished the day at BAHRS, a famous seafood restaurant, with 1 pound lobster and some clams